Inmate? Patient?
I made a remark in my last post about being unable to leave a particular building at UCLA when I was 14 or so. Leafshimmer asks about it, so:
I had a hard time in school. Most of the kids were cruel and/or stupid, most of the teachers were incompetent and/or stupid, and most of the classwork was pointless and/or stupid. This was in addition to (and probably, at least on the socialisation side, largely as a result of) the stress mother's precious little personality disorder caused on a daily basis So, I didn't get along with the other kids, got into tangles with the bad teachers, and tended to do a shit job of the classwork.
It was decided (by parties unknown to me) that I had serious emotional problems, so at the suggestion of some (unknown to me) consultant to my mother, mom and dad and I flew out to California, for the putative purpose of a consultation with some kind of expert. This wasn't new to me; I was quite accustomed by that point to being dragged around from expert to expert to expert, so I bought the story. But, that wasn't actually quite the real purpose of the trip.
When we arrived at UCLA, I was steered to the Neuropsychiatric Institute-the loonybin. An ID bracelet was clapped onto my wrist, I was given a pamphlet enumerating mental patients' rights in the state of California, mom and dad handed over a secretly-packed duffel of my clothes and took off, and there I stayed for the next 45 or 60 days or so. I can't say exactly how long I was there, for I lost track of time. There were grids on the windows, electric locks on the doors, fulltime supervision and involuntary medication which they said were just vaccination shots (...Huh? Vaccinations against what, exactly? They wouldn't answer the question. I still don't know what they injected me with.)
Compton gangbangers, self-mutilators, drug addicts and assorted others were my involuntary peer group, except when we took our carefully-monitored exercise in the razor-fenced yard...then we were joined by the vegetatives from the next ward over.
One time, one of the inmates lost his cigarette lighter, and the entire lot of us were restricted to the ward for a couple days and individually searched. And then there was the time I was doing my laundry-there was a small laundry room on the ward-and the washer wouldn't fill. Somebody had closed the water valve, which was right above the washer on the wall. I reached up to open it, and at that moment, one of the nurse/orderly/staff types opened the laundry room door. Seeing my hand on the valve, she immediately marched me out of the laundry room, announced she'd caught me tampering with the washer, and put me on what was called "dayroom status". This meant I was only allowed to be in my room when sleeping or dressing. All other "discretionary" time would have to be spent in the "dayroom", a common room with a ping-pong table, a sofa, and a television set.
It was in the dayroom that I, a sheltered white kid from the suburbs, got in a disagreement one day with Lamar, a tough black kid from Compton who claimed to be in for attempted murder, over what television channel to watch (talk about a scene right out of the Jack Nicholson movie I know you're thinking about as you read this). I knew no other tactic than to get legalistically verbal. Lamar put a quick stop to that when he threw his fist at my nose so fast I never even saw it. Hurt like hell, and there was a lot of blood, though by some miracle he didn't break it. I tried to make hay of it, spinning my report of the incident to my parents as though Lamar's punch had taught me valuable lessons about not provoking people, etc. It was a clumsy attempt, but I was desperate, and willing to say anything I thought would hasten my departure from that awful place. I didn't get any sense of how it went over with dad, but mother seemed to buy it, for she reminded me numerous times in the following year or so about those valuable lessons from Lamar. What bullshit!
Hammers will tend to see as nails everything they encounter, and the UCLA-NPI hammers were no different: Sure enough, yes indeedy, I had serious emotional problems that could best be dealt with by sending me, they decided, to a residential ranch. One of those where the courts send kids who assault, sexually abuse and/or kill their schoolmates or siblings, use drugs, steal cars, set fires, etc. This one was in Colorado, but Colorado's a large state, and this place was well away from my neighborhood. Place was called the Griffith Center.
Life at the Griffith Center, like life at the UCLA cuckoo's nest, was an endless stream of big and little tyrannies. Soul-death by a thousand cuts. I remember one particular gem: It had begun to rain, and I was a long way from my cabin, so I trudged along. By and by, one of the staffers came along in her tan Ford pickup. She offered me a ride up to the cabin, and I climbed in. I don't remember her name, but I remember she looked just like Ellen, the mother character in the One Big Happy cartoon strip. As we trundled up the muddy road, I gathered my nerve, said her name, and asked "Do you think I belong here?". She brought the truck to a stop and stared through the windshield wipers' streaks for a few long moments before sighing and slowly saying "No...no, Daniel, I'm really sure you don't." After a moment more, she put the truck back in gear and we finished the trip in silence. Naw shit, I didn't belong there!
Of course, I reported this revelation to my parents, and I'm sure you can guess the result: They phoned and asked the administrator about it, who asked the staffer about it, who denied it. Final score: One staffer's job saved, one inmate resident given several demerits and a black mark on his record for lying.
(Exercise for the reader: Get incarcerated or involuntarily committed to any secure facility, then try convincing those in charge that you don't belong there. If you're still allowed to use the phone afterwards, call me and let me know how it all worked out for you.)
After a while there-2 months? 3? 4? I lost track of time there, too-mother, as she tells it, smelt a rat and started asking questions which the administrators couldn't satisfactorily answer. Over their strenuous objections, she and dad drove down and picked me up. Little more was said about it after that-ever-except for mother's dismissive assurance that it hadn't done me any harm and she wasn't to blame, having acted on best available information and with the best of intent, and really, if I hadn't been such a behavior problem, it wouldn't have been necessary. Oh yeah, and the few people at school the next fall whose jaws dropped when they saw me. They tended to stammer and say "I heard you...moved...to California...!" before dashing away.
From that point, the emphasis shifted more towards shoving Ritalin down my throat. I guess that's another story.
I had a hard time in school. Most of the kids were cruel and/or stupid, most of the teachers were incompetent and/or stupid, and most of the classwork was pointless and/or stupid. This was in addition to (and probably, at least on the socialisation side, largely as a result of) the stress mother's precious little personality disorder caused on a daily basis So, I didn't get along with the other kids, got into tangles with the bad teachers, and tended to do a shit job of the classwork.
It was decided (by parties unknown to me) that I had serious emotional problems, so at the suggestion of some (unknown to me) consultant to my mother, mom and dad and I flew out to California, for the putative purpose of a consultation with some kind of expert. This wasn't new to me; I was quite accustomed by that point to being dragged around from expert to expert to expert, so I bought the story. But, that wasn't actually quite the real purpose of the trip.
When we arrived at UCLA, I was steered to the Neuropsychiatric Institute-the loonybin. An ID bracelet was clapped onto my wrist, I was given a pamphlet enumerating mental patients' rights in the state of California, mom and dad handed over a secretly-packed duffel of my clothes and took off, and there I stayed for the next 45 or 60 days or so. I can't say exactly how long I was there, for I lost track of time. There were grids on the windows, electric locks on the doors, fulltime supervision and involuntary medication which they said were just vaccination shots (...Huh? Vaccinations against what, exactly? They wouldn't answer the question. I still don't know what they injected me with.)
Compton gangbangers, self-mutilators, drug addicts and assorted others were my involuntary peer group, except when we took our carefully-monitored exercise in the razor-fenced yard...then we were joined by the vegetatives from the next ward over.
One time, one of the inmates lost his cigarette lighter, and the entire lot of us were restricted to the ward for a couple days and individually searched. And then there was the time I was doing my laundry-there was a small laundry room on the ward-and the washer wouldn't fill. Somebody had closed the water valve, which was right above the washer on the wall. I reached up to open it, and at that moment, one of the nurse/orderly/staff types opened the laundry room door. Seeing my hand on the valve, she immediately marched me out of the laundry room, announced she'd caught me tampering with the washer, and put me on what was called "dayroom status". This meant I was only allowed to be in my room when sleeping or dressing. All other "discretionary" time would have to be spent in the "dayroom", a common room with a ping-pong table, a sofa, and a television set.
It was in the dayroom that I, a sheltered white kid from the suburbs, got in a disagreement one day with Lamar, a tough black kid from Compton who claimed to be in for attempted murder, over what television channel to watch (talk about a scene right out of the Jack Nicholson movie I know you're thinking about as you read this). I knew no other tactic than to get legalistically verbal. Lamar put a quick stop to that when he threw his fist at my nose so fast I never even saw it. Hurt like hell, and there was a lot of blood, though by some miracle he didn't break it. I tried to make hay of it, spinning my report of the incident to my parents as though Lamar's punch had taught me valuable lessons about not provoking people, etc. It was a clumsy attempt, but I was desperate, and willing to say anything I thought would hasten my departure from that awful place. I didn't get any sense of how it went over with dad, but mother seemed to buy it, for she reminded me numerous times in the following year or so about those valuable lessons from Lamar. What bullshit!
Hammers will tend to see as nails everything they encounter, and the UCLA-NPI hammers were no different: Sure enough, yes indeedy, I had serious emotional problems that could best be dealt with by sending me, they decided, to a residential ranch. One of those where the courts send kids who assault, sexually abuse and/or kill their schoolmates or siblings, use drugs, steal cars, set fires, etc. This one was in Colorado, but Colorado's a large state, and this place was well away from my neighborhood. Place was called the Griffith Center.
Life at the Griffith Center, like life at the UCLA cuckoo's nest, was an endless stream of big and little tyrannies. Soul-death by a thousand cuts. I remember one particular gem: It had begun to rain, and I was a long way from my cabin, so I trudged along. By and by, one of the staffers came along in her tan Ford pickup. She offered me a ride up to the cabin, and I climbed in. I don't remember her name, but I remember she looked just like Ellen, the mother character in the One Big Happy cartoon strip. As we trundled up the muddy road, I gathered my nerve, said her name, and asked "Do you think I belong here?". She brought the truck to a stop and stared through the windshield wipers' streaks for a few long moments before sighing and slowly saying "No...no, Daniel, I'm really sure you don't." After a moment more, she put the truck back in gear and we finished the trip in silence. Naw shit, I didn't belong there!
Of course, I reported this revelation to my parents, and I'm sure you can guess the result: They phoned and asked the administrator about it, who asked the staffer about it, who denied it. Final score: One staffer's job saved, one inmate resident given several demerits and a black mark on his record for lying.
(Exercise for the reader: Get incarcerated or involuntarily committed to any secure facility, then try convincing those in charge that you don't belong there. If you're still allowed to use the phone afterwards, call me and let me know how it all worked out for you.)
After a while there-2 months? 3? 4? I lost track of time there, too-mother, as she tells it, smelt a rat and started asking questions which the administrators couldn't satisfactorily answer. Over their strenuous objections, she and dad drove down and picked me up. Little more was said about it after that-ever-except for mother's dismissive assurance that it hadn't done me any harm and she wasn't to blame, having acted on best available information and with the best of intent, and really, if I hadn't been such a behavior problem, it wouldn't have been necessary. Oh yeah, and the few people at school the next fall whose jaws dropped when they saw me. They tended to stammer and say "I heard you...moved...to California...!" before dashing away.
From that point, the emphasis shifted more towards shoving Ritalin down my throat. I guess that's another story.